CONTRACTS: Coaching staff deals agreed

Manager Greg Abbott, assistant manager Graham Kavanagh and first team coach Tony Caig have today agreed new one-year contracts to continue in their current roles at Brunton Park.

“Discussions have now been concluded with the management team,” managing director John Nixon explained. “All parties have agreed a one-year contract, in principle, and it is now just a question of completing the paperwork.”

“Finalising that part of it takes a matter of hours but we are in a situation where they are all away on courses or on family breaks,” he added.

“The manager and Tony [Caig] are due back in Carlisle next week, so we’ll be able to get that sorted, but Graham [Kavanagh] won’t be back with us until he finishes his coaching course and his summer break at the end of June.

“We’re now in a position to move on with the important task of getting the club ready, at all levels, for the season ahead.”

Abbott, 49, joined the playing staff as first team and reserve team coach in July 2006 having left his role at the Leeds Academy to take up the post.

He stepped up to the caretaker manager role with the Cumbrians when Neil McDonald left the club at the start of the 2007/08 campaign. He was then the natural successor to John Ward when his tenureship ended just over one year later.

Abbott guided the team to a mid-table finish and a Wembley final in the JPT in his first full season in charge and went one better twelve months later when his team brought the trophy home with a well-deserved 1-0 victory over Brentford beneath the famous arch.

Kavanagh, 39, initially joined United on-loan from Sunderland in October 2008 and went on to make over 50 appearances in the first team when he made the move a permanent one later that year.

He progressed through the ranks to work as player-coach and assistant manager and is now close to completing his UEFA pro licence.

Caig, 39 spent his formative years as Brunton Park where he made the number one spot his own with almost 300 appearances for the Blues.

His career then took him to Blackpool, Charlton, Newcastle United, Hibernian and Canada, amongst others, before his return to Cumbria and Workington four seasons ago. He started to train with the club as goalkeeper coach during the 2009/10 season before moving into the position full time the following season.

Meanwhile youth boss Eric Kinder has agreed a two-year deal which will take him through to the summer of 2015.

“It is slightly different with Eric because his current contract technically came to a close at the end of May,” John Nixon said.

“He has been offered, and has agreed, a two-year deal to reflect the fact that he has just signed a new group of young players on two-year YTS engagements.

“We think it’s only right and proper that those young 16-year-old boys know that their manager will be there to see them through their full term.”

Kinder joined United from the Blackburn Academy in the summer of 2006 and has produced a string of players for the first team squad throughout his tenure.

The current squad has eight professionals in its number – Mark Beck, Mark Gillespie, Brandon Gwinnutt, Jack Lynch, Brad Potts, Alex Salmon, Dave Symington and Josh Todd – who have all come through the youth ranks to earn their first deals.

The team reached the Youth Alliance Cup national final for the first time in its history last season and famously beat a Manchester United team, which included Ben Amos, Corry Evans, Federico Macheda and Danny Welbeck, in an exciting FA Youth Cup fourth round meeting in front of Sir Alex Ferguson in January 2008.

We'll have reaction from our coaching staff over the course of the next few days.